Chance Meeting
by magfreak
Summary: My Secret Santa fic: Lady Sybil Crawley is working as a nurse in Dublin weeks after the Easter Rising and must treat a journalist by the name of Tom Branson who comes into her hospital after being questioned by the British Army.


My very, very late Secret Santa fic for katsthoughtsonthingsbigandsmall on tumblr. Here's her prompt:

 _Sybil is somehow working in Dubiln shortly after the Rising where she meets Tom is a journalist who has just been released from prison and she treats the injuries he has sustained while being questioned._

Huge fat disclaimer regarding my lack of knowledge of Irish and medical history. This may well be the most inaccurate, unrealistic fic ever. All in good fun. Enjoy!

* * *

"Crawley!"

Sybil stood up immediately upon hearing the voice of the head nurse. "Yes, Nurse Flaherty?"

The small, stout redhead gestured for Sybil to follow her. She was a woman of few words and ran her ward rather like a drill sergeant might, a fact Sybil became aware of and learned to respect soon after her start at the central Dublin hospital, mere days after the surrender that marked the end of the Easter Rising.

Everyone had been on edge in the weeks that followed—many still were—but Nurse Flaherty merely went about her business. Her severe manner was not a product of the unrest, but the way she ensured everything was done as it should be. Sybil appreciated the fact that she performed her job well and did not suffer fools. And anyway she had been the only person who hadn't turned Sybil away immediately upon hearing her English accent and learning her background.

Sybil followed Nurse Flaherty down the hallway into one of the few private rooms on this side of the hospital.

"The young man's just come in," the head nurse said. "The doctor is with him now and my other girls are busy, so it'll have to be you alone. The police have been having a day questioning just about everyone and their cousin after the rebellion. This one didn't have much good to say by the look of him."

"Pardon me?" Sybil said, curious as to what Nurse Flaherty had meant, but they arrived at the room as Sybil spoke and the meaning became clear immediately.

He was bloodied all over, obviously having been beaten by the police and quite thoroughly.

A doctor who had been checking the young man over when they'd walked in turned and said, "Ah, Nurse Flaherty. You're here. Good. He'll need to be cleaned and patched up. Some nasty bruising, but no breaks. He's likely not slept since he was picked up, but we should wake him and keep him awake for a few hours. Heaven knows how many blows he took to the head."

Nurse Flaherty turned to Sybil. "You have your orders, Crawley. I'll go fetch you some water. Try to take off his jacket and shirt. Cut them off if you must."

"Are we sure she's up for the task?" the doctor asked the head nurse, as if Sybil wasn't even there.

"Yes," Nurse Flaherty answered curtly, before even Sybil could speak up in her own defense. "Anyway, there's no one else. We're woefully understaffed and all my other nurses are needed elsewhere. Experience has to begin somewhere, doesn't it?"

"I can do it, doctor," Sybil said, eager to prove herself once and for all.

The doctor let out a long sigh. "Very well," he said, and without another word, he was out the door.

Nurse Flaherty followed, muttering, "old fool," as she left the room.

Sybil looked over her patient. He was young, not thirty years old. A large cut on his forehead accounted for most of the blood spattered all over him, though Sybil could see that a wound on his arm had soaked through his shirt and jacket. His eyes were closed—one of them was swollen shut, and his breaths were a bit shallow.

She took a deep breath and rubbed her hands at her sides.

 _Here goes nothing_.

She approached the bed he was on, and first bent over to adjust his pillow so his head was more elevated. She considered waking him as the doctor had indicated, but she decided that washing him would be easier if he was unconscious. Leaning over him, she moved her hands to unbutton his jacket.

Sybil smirked as she worked the buttons out of their holes. _They beat him senseless, but they put his jacket back on when they let him go?_

She had just started pulling the sides apart to take the jacket off, when she felt his hand grab her wrist.

"Don't cut it," he whispered. "I don't have any others."

Sybil turned. His eyes were still closed.

"I have to return to work eventually, and I can't afford another."

"Have you been awake the whole time?" Sybil asked.

He moved his head to nod and winced.

Sybil took a blanket folded at the foot of the bed and pushed it beneath his pillow. "Is that better?"

He opened his eyes as much as his injuries would let him. They were the clearest blue Sybil had ever seen. "Why doesn't the doctor trust you to do this?" he asked.

"I only started here about a month ago," Sybil answered.

He narrowed his eyes slightly. "You're . . . you're English."

Sybil offered a small smile. "That's another reason, I suppose."

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm trying to take care of you."

"I mean what are you doing in Ireland."

"Do you always ask this many questions?"

"I'm a journalist."

"Well, I'm a nurse. _Your_ nurse. That's all you need to know for now."

Sybil noticed him wincing again and was about to adjust his pillows again when she realized he was actually smiling. She rolled her eyes and said, "If you want me to save your clothes, you're going to have to sit up."

He nodded again, and with Sybil pulling him up gently, he sat up. He felt woozy for a moment, but once Sybil saw that he had his bearings, she stood and carefully tugged the jacket over his shoulders and off, one arm at a time. She had just set it down on a chair next to the bed when Nurse Flaherty returned.

"Good, you're awake," Nurse Flaherty said as she put the basin down on a small table next to the head of the bed. There was a small wardrobe in the corner nearest to the door. Sybil walked over to it and pulled out two small towels.

"What's your name, son?" Nurse Flaherty asked.

"Branson," he said quietly.

"Do you know where you are and why you're here, Mr. Branson?"

"I'm in a hospital room," he said. "The why is a bit complicated."

"Is it?" Nurse Flaherty retorted humorlessly. "Well, Nurse Crawley will be looking after you and keep you company."

"Must I really stay awake?"

"Yes," she replied, offering no further explanation. "I trust you have things well in hand, Crawley, so I will leave you to it."

After Nurse Flaherty had left the room, Sybil looked at her patient once again.

"If you have a serious head injury, we need to monitor your symptoms. Sleep would mask them, and you'd not get appropriate care. If they don't manifest in the next few hours, you will be in the clear. It's a precaution, but for your own good."

"You don't sound like someone who just became a nurse."

"I didn't just become a nurse," Sybil said as she unbuttoned his waistcoat. "I've been at it since the war started. I worked at the hospital in the village I'm from before I came here."

"And _why_ did you come here exactly?"

Sybil smiled as she pushed his waistcoat off his shoulders. "Persistent, aren't you?"

"Like I said, I'm a journalist."

She began unbuttoning his shirt. "It's a rather long story. I'd just as soon not bore you with it."

"I like long stories, and I sincerely doubt that one about a posh English girl like you working at a public hospital in the middle of Dublin is boring."

She looked him in the eye and said, "You think you're very clever, don't you, Mr. Branson?"

"Clever enough . . . but not as clever as you, obviously."

Without responding, Sybil pulled his shirt off. Now that he was down to his undershirt, Sybil bent down over the basin of water Nurse Flaherty had brought in, soaked a towel and began to wash the blood off his face. As gently as she could, she patted the towel around his face until the blood caked on it began to loosen. After a few minutes, she soaked the towel again and carefully wiped his face with it. Eventually, after repeating the process several times, his face was clean.

It was a handsome one—Sybil couldn't deny that, even in its battered state. Though the cheek was still swollen beneath it, the eye he hadn't been able to open when she'd first come into the room was now free of the blood that had caked over the eyelid and had kept it shut before she'd cleaned it. As soon as he could open them both, she could feel his eyes watching her as she worked, not even wincing as she treated and bandaged the gash on his forehead.

When she finished, she looked in his eyes again and said. "My story is long. I suppose you're right to say that it's not boring, but it is quite sad. I don't like reliving it, not with the wound fresh as it is. And anyway, you're a patient. It's not really appropriate, is it?"

"I'm sorry to hear that," he answered. "That is to say . . . I'm not saying I'm sorry to hear you won't tell me. I mean I'm sorry that it's a sad story."

Sybil smiled. "I know what you meant."

She looked over at the water basin. The water was a dark red color now, so she picked it up the basin and headed to the door, intending to get fresh water. As she reached the door, she heard his voice behind her.

"I'm Tom, by the way."

xxx

When she returned about ten minutes later, he was still sitting up, but his eyes were closed and his head was slumped forward. Alarmed, she quickly set the basin with fresh water and the rolled up towel she was holding down on the floor and ran to the bed. She grabbed his face and began to slap him lightly.

"Mr. Branson! Mr. Branson, wake up! Wake up, Mr. Branson!"

Tom's head jerked up and his eyes opened widely. "I'm up! I'm up!" He blinked his eyes quickly, looking a bit in a daze until he focused on her face, which was very close to his. "Sorry," he said quietly. "I didn't mean to alarm you."

"Neither did I mean to alarm _you_ ," she said, finally stepping away. "Did you realize you were falling asleep?"

He smiled. "Yes. I thought I'd steal a minute or two of shut-eye while you were gone. I meant to open my eyes again when I heard you come in. I suppose I didn't realize how tired I really was."

Sybil smiled as she picked up the basin from where she'd left to set it on the table. "They really did a number on you."

Tom shrugged his shoulders. "I'm alive. That makes me one of the lucky ones."

Sybil bit her lip and turned away from him but not before he noticed her expression darkening. He watched the gentle rise and fall of her shoulders as she took a deep breath. When she turned again she was smiling tightly, as if forcing herself to. Then, she wet a fresh towel with the water and came over to clean off the cut on his arm that had stained his clothes. It was a long, thin straight line, several inches long, from the middle of his bicep to just above the bend in his elbow. The knife that had done it had obviously been in practiced hands, cutting slowly and deliberately.

 _They were torturing him_ , Sybil thought.

As if reading her thoughts, he said, "They were never going to kill me, the men who did this to me. They just wanted to scare me."

She pressed the towel against his arm and held it there firmly. "Why?"

"Because I write about what the British Army is doing here, and the deaths and persecution of innocent people. The rebellion was bloody, but the response will be bloodier still. I'd be happy that their ruthlessness will likely bring many more to our cause than our own arguments could if it weren't for the loss of people who never wanted to fight the fight in the first place."

Sybil bit her lip again. She couldn't stop her eyes from clouding over with tears this time. When they spilled over, she quickly wiped at her cheeks and moved away.

"Do you know what I'm talking about?" he asked carefully.

She turned her head slightly and nodded. She put her hand in the pocket of her apron to take out a small handkerchief. After she dabbed at her eyes, she asked with a slight catch in her voice, "Will you stop?"

"Writing?"

Sybil nodded again.

"No, not until they stop."

She turned all the way back around and smiled, a genuine—if sad—smile. "Good."

She looked at the cut on his arm again. _It's clean but it needs suturing_ , she thought. _Five or six stitches would do it._

She'd not yet been given authorization to perform such a procedure, but she knew where the appropriate supplies were kept and had done it plenty of times at Downton Hospital. If she didn't do it herself now, he'd likely be left waiting for hours for the doctor to return, and the longer he waited the more likely it was that infection would set in. Doing it herself would also help her keep him awake.

And she could keep talking with him.

She didn't know _why_ she wanted to keep talking with him. She just did.

"I need to get a few more supplies to—heavens!" She'd looked up as she spoke and saw that the cut on his forehead had already bled through the bandage she'd put on it. Quickly, she brought the towel up to it again, went to the table for a fresh bandage and before he even realized what she was doing, she'd redressed it.

He touched it with his fingers. "It didn't even notice."

"I almost forgot," she said, picking up the towel that she'd brought in with the basin. She unrolled it and took out a small piece of ice. She looked at the ice in her hand for moment, then without thought, she took her handkerchief again, wrapped the ice in it and walked over to him again.

"Here," she said pressing the ice against the side of his face, next to his eye. "I nicked it from the ice box. It'll help with the swelling."

She guided his hand to the ice and held it there with her own for several seconds before letting go.

"Clever _and_ resourceful," he said, with a gleam in his eye that made Sybil blush slightly.

"I'll be back," she said. "Don't fall asleep this time."

He smiled as she left the room.

 _Clever, resourceful and a right beauty_ , he thought. _How can I stay awake when, surely, I'm already dreaming._

xxx

When Sybil came back in she was holding a metal tray that held several small towels, gauze, a small curved needle that looked a bit like a fish hook to Tom, black thread, some matches, a pencil, a small silver flask and another cube of ice. Tom, who was still holding the ice she had given him against the side of his eye, watched her with a smile as she set it on the bed next to him and them moved the chair on which his jacket hung so that it was directly in front of him.

She sat down on the chair and took a deep breath. "I'm going to level with you, Mr. Branson. That cut is rather small. It's clean and, conveniently, for our purposes, it's a straight line. I could bandage it tightly, which is what the doctor wants. Eventually, it will scab over and heal, but there's a chance of infection setting in before that happens. The best way to prevent that is to keep the wound clean and for it to heal as soon as possible. We can help it along in that regard by suturing it—that is to say, sewing it closed. On its own, it may be days, even weeks, before it has closed up completely, which leaves you vulnerable, especially once you leave the hospital."

Tom's brow furrowed. "So what are you saying?"

"I could insist to the doctor that he do it—stitch up the wound, that is—but even if he agreed with me, which . . . well, you've seen how highly he thinks of me . . . it will likely be several hours, if not tomorrow, before he comes to check on you again."

"What are you proposing?"

"I can do this very easily," she continued, starting to fidget with her hands as she spoke. "Downton Hospital, where I used to work, served injured officers. I helped sew up numerous men who came back from the warfront with a whole manner of injuries, much messier and graver than yours. If you trust me to do it, it would only be a matter of minutes—five or six stitches at the very most. I know that—"

Tom grabbed her now wildly gesticulating hands. "Yes."

The interruption jarred Sybil for a moment, having been expecting to talk at some length to convince him. "What?"

He smiled again. "I trust you."

Sybil pulled her hands back into her lap. "You do?"

He nodded. "You say you can do it, and I believe you." He extended his cut arm out as a show of good faith.

Sybil smiled widely. "OK. All right!" It was the most trust anyone had placed in her since she'd arrived in Ireland. Excitedly, she stood and leaned over the tray, re-arranging everything she'd piled on it so it was in a line in the order in which she'd need everything. She picked up the tray again and stood, practically grinning. Seeing his face again, she pulled her lips into her mouth, embarrassed a bit.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to be so excited. It's a bit unprofessional. It's only that I've not been given a chance to do much here beyond changing bed sheets and sweeping. It's been a while since I really helped a patient get better."

Tom smiled. "My injuries are happy to be of service."

Sybil bit her lip. _Golly, he's handsome_ , she thought. With a deep breath, however, and a gentle shake of her head, she cleared her mind of everything but the task ahead. She sat on the bed next to him, which surprised him, and set the tray between them.

First, she picked up the flask and opened it. "Here, drink this. I imagine that you can handle at least some pain given how cheerful and alert you seem to be, but even so. Your muscles should be as relaxed as we can get them."

Tom smirked. _You're the reason I'm so alert and cheerful_. He considered saying it aloud, but she was obviously trying to focus on the task ahead. He set the ice he'd been holding next to him, took the flask and had a drink. It was whiskey. "This is good stuff," he said, surprised. "The hospital just keeps it 'round? It's a wonder more people don't injure themselves so they can be laid up here permanently."

Sybil smirked. "It's mine. Well, my father's. A cousin of ours would give him a bottle of it every summer, when we visited his home in Scotland. I took it before I left home. I doubt he's missed it."

"Is your father the king?" Tom said with a laugh.

"No," she said with roll of her eyes, which caused Tom to laugh. She cleared her throat and said in a quiet voice, "He's an earl." When he didn't say anything in response, she went on, "Anyway, my—" She stopped short and looked down briefly. "A friend said to carry it with me, when I first arrived here, in case I ever got into a scrape of some kind."

Tom's expression softened. "Good advice." He looked at the flask and said, "'Tis a shame not to savor it but . . ." Then he drank the rest in one go.

He let out a long exhale and shook his head. Tom enjoyed the taste of whiskey and sitting down for a pint of beer, but the truth was he wasn't much of a drinker. The amount of alcohol in the flask was at least twice what he'd ever usually have in one sitting. He felt the warmth of the liquid as it made its way down his chest and into his belly. His cheeks were flush and his heart was racing—but that had nothing to do with the whiskey and everything to do with _her_.

As he drank, she had taken the pillow from the head of the bed, lifted his injured arm and stuffed the pillow underneath it for support.

"All right, then, " she said, taking back the flask from him. "Now for the difficult part."

She scooped out the ice she'd brought from its glass and said, "Hold this against the cut and keep it on. The more we can numb the area, the easier this will be."

Tom did as she asked and watched as Sybil pushed a thin, barely visible strand of the black thread she'd brought into the eye of the needle. She looked back and forth between the thread in her fingers and his wound several times until—apparently satisfied that she had threaded enough through the needle—she cut off the remainder with her teeth. Then, she sparked one of the matches, picked up the needle up from her lap and held it against the flame for as long as it took for the match to burn down to her fingertips. The metal of the needle blackened in the heat. She touched needle against the block of ice that Tom was holding, and it hissed momentarily.

Looking up at him, she asked, "Are you ready?"

Tom nodded, already feeling a bit light headed from the whiskey and the clearness of her eyes.

"OK, then." Sybil grabbed the pencil from the tray and pushed it between his teeth.

He took the pencil out of his mouth and said, "You think of everything," before putting it between his teeth again.

Sybil smiled, but only for a short moment. Her face was serious again as she bent down and, without further warning, stabbed the needle into the top of his cut.

Tom grunted and bit down on the pencil. She looked up at him, as if asking permission to go on, and he nodded.

"My father is the fifth Earl of Grantham," she said matter-of-factly, not looking up, as she pricked him with the needle again and pulled the thread through.

She prepared to prick him again, and again she spoke as she pushed the needle in. "His estate is in the north of England."

Another stitch: "Downton Abbey is where I grew up with my parents, two sisters and thirty-five servants."

Another stitch: "I was presented at Buckingham Palace in 1914, just a month before the war began."

Another stitch: "I signed up for a nursing course in York, with the help of a cousin, about a month after."

Another stitch: "I was a volunteer auxiliary nurse at our village hospital, which was serving officers during the war."

Another stitch: "And I convinced my parents to use our house as a convalescent home for them."

And the final stitch: "It's selfish, but I'd hated my life before, and the war saved me . . . but at a price."

Sybil tied off the thread. Quickly and quietly, she cleaned up the bleeding and bandaged up Tom's arm.

She looked up, into his eyes. He'd been transfixed as she spoke and had barely felt a thing. Sybil looked away again. "Three months ago, our chauffeur got into trouble. He was a young man and he was my friend . . . my best friend. I offered him a way out, but really I was only seeking escape for myself. We told my parents we were going to marry and ran away. Then . . . Easter week . . . that Thursday . . ."

"Oh no," Tom whispered, suddenly knowing how her story would end.

"That Thursday, he was walking down North King's Street and an English soldier saw him and shot him dead. When his parents and I asked why he was killed, the officer said, 'Because he was probably a rebel.' That was rubbish, of course. He didn't have a political bone in his body. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and the English . . . well, we're not at our best here, are we?"

Tom brought his hand to Sybil's chin and turned her face toward his.

"So that's it," she said, as several tears silently ran down her cheeks. "That's my long sad story . . . and you're all fixed up." That last she said with a forced smile and obviously false cheer, but Tom didn't look away.

"What's your name?" he asked. "Your full name."

"Sybil Crawley."

"Lady Sybil Crawley?" he said in a whisper.

She shook her head. "Just Sybil."

They looked into each other's eyes for a long moment—it felt like an eternity, a happy one, for them both. Tom let go of her chin and sat back. "Can I ask one question?"

"What question is that?"

"What did he do that got him into trouble back in England?"

Sybil blinked several times before finally answering. "He was caught in bed with one of the officers at the convalescent home."

Before Tom could register what she had said, she leaned forward to kiss him. The sensation of her lips against his took him by surprise, but he responded almost immediately. He brought his hand back to her face, and held her close as he deepened the kiss. For a few glorious seconds, everything fell away—where they were, who they were, and the series of tragedies that had landed them both exactly where they were.

But just as suddenly as she had kissed him, she pulled away. "I'm sorry," she said quickly.

"Don't—"

"I'm sorry," she repeated, standing up. "You can sleep now."

And then she ran out of the room.

Tom tried to stand up to follow her, but the whiskey, the pain in his arm and the dull ache in his head all caught up to him in that moment, and he fell back on the bed. As he lay there with the room spinning around him, he wondered if, before this moment, it had ever been possible for a person to feel so bad and so good at the same time. If he had any strength left, he might have tried to get back up to look for her. Instead, though, after several deep breaths to try to calm himself, he closed his eyes and within minutes, he was asleep.

xxx

Sybil hadn't gone far. Knowing she wouldn't be able to hold back the torrent of tears she locked herself into the nearest supply closet she could find. She'd sobbed for a good ten minutes—something she hadn't allowed herself to do since Aidan had been killed. She thought about him almost constantly—How could she not? She was in his country, in his city, living a life independent of all of the silly ritual she abhorred only because he had been willing to give her the freedom from it all that she'd dreamed of for so long.

Just now, with Tom Branson, caring for him and talking with him, it was as if she was not merely her old self, but the person she longed to be—a nurse and nothing more. And for that moment, she was free of the guilt that weighed on her every minute.

The false engagement had been Sybil's idea to save her friend from unjust imprisonment when his fellow chauffeur, Pratt—jealous that the young Irishman's sweet, affable nature had made him a favorite of the family—caught two lovers in an intimate moment and called the police to the house.

Still, after one scandal had been avoided and replaced by another (the daughter of the house in love with a servant), Aidan knew that his time in England was at an end. Leaving together had been his idea. He longed to be back in Ireland and had only left to support his parents, who lived off the wages that he sent back home every month. He was sure that despite her nationality and position she'd find work and that in a few years time they'd have enough to move themselves and his family to America. It was a foolhardy plan, and she knew it. She immediately went along with it, though, so eager was she for a new life. If she'd said no or even just taken some time to consider as her sisters implored her to do, she'd still be at Downton—she'd still feel miserable and confined—but her friend would be alive. What's life in a gilded cage next to no life at all?

After the seconds of bliss that came with the kiss, that guilt came rushing back. So she ran.

But alone in that utility closet, after she's cried herself out, Sybil's mind became clear, and she realized why Tom Branson had been sent to her.

xxx

Such was Tom's exhaustion that at first his sleep was deep and dreamless. An hour or so in, however, his active mind took over. Memories of his beating at the hands of the British Army came first. The men who had picked him up weren't just looking to scare him, but also to fish for information. Tom's stories on Republican activity in Dublin and elsewhere were replete with details that no other reporters seemed able to find. Tom hadn't given up any of his sources, but he paid dearly for his loyalty.

As he relived the pain in his subconscious, images of his family and those he cared about began to intermingle with the memories, and in his mind's eye, Tom saw those he loved being beaten savagely as he had been and soon he was thrashing wildly this way and that. In one such movement, he rolled over his injured arm, which was still tender from where Sybil had stitched it. The searing pain prompted a loud, sudden scream that woke him from his fitful sleep.

Sybil, who had been sitting just outside the room waiting for him to wake, ran in immediately.

"Mr. Branson!" She exclaimed as she caught him, about to roll off the bed.

He was drenched in sweat and out of breath. His body began to convulse, and realizing what was about to happen a second before it did, Sybil grabbed the now empty basin she'd left in the room and held it under Tom just before the contents of his stomach came flying out of his mouth. Still holding the basin with one hand, she held his shoulder with the other, as he continued to vomit.

When it finally looked like he was done, Sybil set the basin down, grabbed him by both shoulders and looked him directly in the face for further signs of stress. His breathing began to slow down again and a bit of color came back into his cheeks.

"I can't hold my whiskey, it would seem," he said with a small, embarrassed smile.

Sybil smiled back. "Well, you seem to have your wits about you—though there's not much to be said about that joke."

He sat up, her hands falling away from his shoulders. "The less is said about this deeply mortifying moment, the better."

"I've seen much worse," Sybil replied.

"From men who were fighting a war."

"Who says that's not what you're doing?"

Tom looked up to meet her eyes and opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Words failed him, for how could he describe what he was feeling at so alluring a person. He looked down at his hands again, and laughed slightly to himself.

She sat down next to him and took a towel to his brow to wipe the sweat. "I'll go fetch you some tea," she said. "It will help settle your stomach."

"I don't know if it will do much good. Being in your presence is what has it so stirred up."

Sybil bit her lip and looked down to hide her smile.

"I should apologize," Tom said. "That was inappropriate. I mean . . . it's _true_ , but even so."

Sybil took a deep breath. "I want to give you something." She reached into her apron pocket and got out a folded up piece of paper.

"What is this?" Tom asked taking it.

"The address of Aidan's parents. Aidan's story needs to be heard. He shouldn't have died and people should know that. And they need help. They don't want to accept it from me . . . they are not unkind people. It's only that I'm a reminder to them of what they lost. They think if it weren't for me, Aidan wouldn't have returned and nothing would have happened, and the truth is they're not wrong. I don't want to make it any worse for them, so I've kept my distance since Aidan was buried, but perhaps if _you_ could help them . . ."

"I will."

"You will?"

"I promise. I won't even mention you if that's what you'd prefer."

Sybil smiled, feeling more hopeful than she had in a long time. "Thank you." They looked at one another in silence for a long time, and Tom thought Sybil seemed as if she had more she wanted to say. And she did, but now was not the time. Eventually, when she did speak again, it was only to say, "You should try to sleep again."

Tom nodded. "I think I will. Let's just hope all my demons came out into that bowl."

"And your arm?" Sybil asked. "Is it feeling all right?"

"I don't believe it's ever been better."

Sybil laughed and stood. "You _do_ need rest."

Tom fidgeted with his hands for a moment. "So, um . . . will you be here when I wake up in the morning?"

"I'm afraid I'm off in half an hour."

Tom's shoulders drooped a bit, but he didn't say anything else and neither did she.

As Sybil bent over the basin to pick it up and take it with her, he unfolded the piece of paper.

"Sarah and Christopher Murphy," Tom read aloud. Sybil was almost to the door when Tom said, "Wait, whose is the second address?"

Sybil looked over he shoulder with a smile. "Mine. I'm off on Wednesdays and Saturdays."

With that she closed the door behind her. Tom fell asleep with a grin on his face.


End file.
